


Just Another Lila Salt

by FlippySpatula



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, How Do I Tag, I edited canon a bit, Lila Rossi's Lies Are Exposed, Manipulative Lila Rossi, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Is So Done, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Strong Marinette Dupain-Cheng, That's it, because some of the canon stuff is stupid, but it's not super important, except for max he is my boy, light classmate salt, that's literally the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28682895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlippySpatula/pseuds/FlippySpatula
Summary: Marinette was fed up.Lila had gone too far.Marinette would expose Lila no matter what. She had the power of PowerPoint on her side.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe
Comments: 16
Kudos: 159





	1. Literally just salt

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because I'm at a complete writing block on my other (in my opinion, better) work.  
> I should probably get on that.

Marinette was fed up.

Things had started out okay. As much as she hated lying, she could at least understand the anxieties that a new school caused and the resulting need to fit in or be popular. She might not excuse it, but she understood why Lila would make a few white lies.

But then Lila kept going.

When she lied about Ladybug, of all things, Marinette finally reached the end of her long, long line of patience. She figured one intervention would be enough. Lila would realize that she did not need to lie to fit in, and then they could even be friends.

But Lila didn’t stop. She went even further.

Now instead of little white lies, Marinette found herself on the receiving end of targeted, thought out webs of falsehoods. Lila knew exactly how to mold the classmates around her to warp their perceptions on their surroundings. Now her entire class was turned against her, just like Lila had promised.

(On some unconscious level, Marinette was jealous. She needed to lie about Ladybug for everybody’s safety, but her adamant dislike of lying made her not suited to long-term deception. Lila though, lied like she breathed. Keeping Ladybug a secret would be so much easier if she knew how to lie like Lila did. But lying was wrong. She did not want to learn)

But now, things needed to change. Lila had gotten away with her lies for too long. Marinette would finally do something about it, no matter what Adrien had to say on the matter.

_She thought about her sketchbook, in tatters. Being tripped in the hallway, by nameless faces she had once called friends. Framed over and over again for crimes she did not commit, ignoring her evidence of her innocence over increasingly tangential evidence against her._

She shook her head to dispel those thoughts. It wouldn’t do for Ladybug to get caught up in negative thoughts. Hawk Moth was always watching.

Now though, she began to put her Ladybug creativity to work. Outside the costume, it came more slowly, but eventually she got into the flow. She frantically scribbled in her notebook, coming up with and revising idea after idea until the puzzle pieces assembled into a cohesive plan.

The best and most poetic way to defeat Lila was, in Marinette’s opinion, to use her sneakiness and deception against her. And while Marinette wouldn’t stoop to Lila’s level of lying and stealing, there were definitely other options.

Marinette turned on the voice recorder app on her phone and slipped it into her bag. She had already tested beforehand that it worked and would record dialogue even outside the bag.

Now she just needed to goad Lila into saying something revealing while she recorded. Ideally, they had to be isolated so that Lila didn’t think anybody else was listening. Luckily, Lila had entered the bathroom alone a minute ago, and Marinette hadn’t seen anybody else enter for the past fifteen minutes, so she was confident they would be alone.

As for how to get Lila to talk, well, honesty is always the best policy.

Marinette let the bathroom door close behind her, shutting herself in with the beast.

“Why are you doing this, Lila”

Lila threw on a saccharine smile. “I don’t know what you could possibly be talking about, Marinette. What have I ever done to you?”

_Not good enough, she needed to get her to drop the nice girl façade._

“Cut the crap, Lila. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I want to know why.”

The smile dropped. _Perfect_. “I already told you, didn’t I? I thought you were smart.”

 _That was good, but not quite a confession_. She was about to respond, but Lila cut her off.

“I suppose those friends of yours must be rubbing off on you. Its funny, really. I barely had to do anything to get our classmates to turn on you. I promised to take your friends away from you, didn’t I? Well it looks like your friends were more than willing to leave on their own.”

“They are only leaving because of your lies, Lila!”

“What can I say? People can’t resist when they hear what they want to hear, I told you already.”

_Perfect. Now to escape without making her suspicious._

“And I promised I’d stop you, Lila.”

Lila sighed. “If you have nothing new to tell me, I think I’ll just leave.” She started towards the door, but looked back. “And if your _friend_ Césaire just happens to hear about how you confronted me while I was all alone in the bathroom, well, that’s not even a lie.”

Lila let the door shut behind her, leaving Marinette alone in the bathroom. 

Marinette pulled her phone out of her bag and stopped the recording. She now had all the evidence she needed.

“Unlike you, Lila, when I make promises, I _always_ keep them.”

“Now I suppose you are all wondering why I called you here.”

Marinette had asked all of her classmates (except for Lila) to meet together after school. She knew that someone would inevitably leak the information to Lila if she told them to keep it secret, so instead she made it clear that she had invited Lila to come a quarter of an hour later. This would both guarantee that she could have uninterrupted time to present her case and allow for a controlled confrontation where she could supervise when Lila arrives.

Alya was the first to speak up. “Girl, you made it clear when you excluded Lila, at least for a couple minutes. That means it almost certainly has something to do with her.”

Rose squealed. “Are you finally making up with her?”

“I do not think that is the case,” Juleka replied, though mostly only heard by Rose. “It is too quick. She is likely going to make her case against Lila again.”

“I’m afraid Juleka is right,” Marinette replied. The girl in question shrunk back a bit at the attention. “But this is going to be the last time I am going to try.”

“Like a last hurrah?” Kim asked.

“More like I am certain it won’t be needed after this. One way or another.”

The classroom quieted in response. Marinette had the classroom projector already set up (courtesy of Max and Markov), so all that was left was to start the presentation. “I want to finish this up before Lila gets here, so lets just jump right into it.

“This presentation is mainly to frame and communicate a certain piece of evidence I have obtained yesterday during school. Before we get into the specifics, I want to call into question many of the more harmless lies Lila has made. There are not necessarily harmful, but they do serve to bring to attention the kind of person Lila is. Let’s go through a couple right now.”

Marinette switches to the next slide. On it is a picture of Fang, Jagged Stone’s pet crocodile. “Now one of the first lies Lila made was that of her Tinnitus. And while normally I wouldn’t question someone’s disability, the story she told about how she got it does not line up. She claims that she got it in an injury caused by saving Jagged Stone’s pet kitten. However, Jagged Stone already has a widely known pet, in Fang, a crocodile who I have met personally. If Jagged Stone ever had a second pet, it has never been documented in any way, shape, or form. Thus we can conclude that this story was either exaggerated in some way or completely made up.”

Alya tried to speak up, but Marinette immediately cut in. “No interruptions until I’m done!”

“Now which conclusion is more likely? That a kitten that has never existed before or after was saved by a teenager in an undocumented case? Or that Lila simply made something up either solely for attention, or, I have to at least admit, to cover up a more complicated truth. According to Occam’s razor, it is much more likely that Lila was simply lying.”

“And this trend continues with many of the other stories that Lila shares. They all seem to involve a suspiciously high-profile celebrity that Lila met in an extremely unlikely or suspicious circumstances. The list goes on and on with such a wide variety of names. Again, according to Occam’s razor, it is much more likely that Lila is making things up for attention. And she is certainly getting it. Look at you guys! You are all more than willing to carry her lunches, do her homework assignments, and do other favors for her! There is certainly a motive for her to lie if this is how you react!”

Again Alya tried to respond, but Marinette spoke up over her “Even if you are not convinced yet, that wasn’t even the point of this presentation so far. Just based on the information I gave so far, I wouldn’t even be mad if you were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Moving to a new school would certainly make someone want to seem popular. But Lila goes much further than this.”

“Many of you likely wonder why Lila and I seem so antagonistic-“

At this, Alya finally managed to cut in. “Lila is always willing to forgive you, Girl. You are the only one perpetuating the conflict.”

Lila’s words flashed again in Marinette’s mind. _You seem a little less dumb than the others, so I’ll give you one last chance. You are either with me, or against me._

Marinette stumbled a bit in her recovery. “I-It might seem that way, I suppose, without context.”

Alya pressed forward, noticing Marinette starting to crack. “Then what _is_ the context?”

Abruptly, Marinette straightened up, starting to get frustrated. “Lila is not a good person. She is a liar. I, as a _good person_ , tried to inform you of her lies, because honesty is an important value for me. Lila took this as a threat to her social status, and thus treated me like a threat. Lila subtly shifted all of your perceptions of me, inciting doubt, stopping you from taking my claims seriously. In fact-”

“As much as this argument is entertaining,” Alix spoke up, “I thought you had some super special shiny evidence to show us. Why don’t you just jump straight into that, hm?”

Marinette and Alya looked at each other for a moment, then silently backed down. 

“…Right.” Marinette said, briefly mentally preparing herself. “As much as I dislike her dishonesty, I have to admit that Lila is smart. She knows to only let her guard down when she and I are alone, usually in the Girl’s bathroom, where nobody but us can provide an account of what we talk about. However, Lila got too confident.”

“So you-“

“I recorded yesterday’s confrontation.”

The room fell silent for a moment. Marinette took the opportunity to advance to the slide with the recording on it.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t record video without Lila noticing, for obvious reasons. But even just the audio is incriminating enough. Why don’t I just show you and let you listen for yourself.”

She hit play.

Lila’s voice, saccharine and sweet, floated across the room, before abruptly falling away into cold, harsh words and spiteful glee. Marinette watched closely at her classmates’ reaction as Lila inadvertently insulted them, internally reveling in the quiet flinches and looks of disbelief. She tampered down those emotions harshly. It was not good to feel happy that her friends were feeling bad.

Eventually, the horrible recording came to an end. The entire classroom was silent.

Alya spoke up again, though much more hesitant. “How…How do we know this wasn’t edited?”

Marinette didn’t have a good response for that, but luckily Max spoke up. “Actually, um…” he lost a bit of confidence when the entire class turned to look at him. “I helped Marinette set up the presentation, and I had Markov analyze the recording. He couldn’t detect any signs of tampering.” A mechanical “Correct” came out of Max’s bag, where Markov stayed for now.

A hesitant voice spoke up from the back. “I can confirm that Lila was lying as well.” Marinette’s heart skipped a beat. _Adrien_. “She… uh… likes the attention, but I figured it was harmless for the time being. But it seems Lila was much more hostile towards Marinette than I had thought. I probably should have spoken up sooner.”

The class went silent in horrified realization. They had abandoned the person who was just trying to help. After a hesitant “I’m so sorry Marinette” from Rose the entire class broke out in apologies. Marinette was starting to get overwhelmed from all the sudden affection. It felt… unreal. She had her friends back. Lila was proven to have lied. Everything was going to go back to normal.

_Click._

The door opened and the class fell silent as they noticed who joined them. Lila herself stood in the doorway.

After an uncomfortably long pause, one of the classmates finally found the courage to break the silence. “…How long were you listening?”

A startlingly cold voice spoke back. “Long enough.”

* * *

The door closed behind her as she entered the otherwise empty house.

Her mind was uncharacteristically empty as she removed her shoes and hung up her coat.

A note taped to the fridge caught her attention.

_Lila-  
I will be working late tonight,  
you are on your own for dinner.  
-Mom_

The words were several days old, but the message was still probably applicable.

Her footsteps were the only noise in the house as she walked slowly up to her bedroom.

As she sat down at her desk in solitude, she finally allowed her mind to wander.

_Well, looks like the jig is finally up._

She opened the bottom drawer next to her and pulled out her ornate wooden lockbox.

She absently ran fingers over smooth decorative gears before opening the box and retrieving her Important journal.

She flipped to the most recent page.

_Experiment 6.1: Herd Mentality  
Complete._

She was surprised her experiment had lasted so long. She had not provided any substantial evidence to back up her claims for months, and yet nobody had looked into it. In fact, were it not for Marinette’s intervention, she could have continued manipulating the classmates around her for probably the entire school year. 

_Pathetic._

Despite the fact that a quick google search could have disproved almost any of her lies, it took Marinette recording her on a phone and making an entire presentation before any of her classmates would even consider the fact that she was lying.

Herd mentality really was a powerful thing.

More so than she expected, really. It was supposed to be a quick little experiment with the new classmates in Move #6. She was expecting the wiser classmates to quickly catch on, but the fear of speaking out in front of their classmates preventing them from convincing the more gullible ones.

But of the entire class, only two people caught on to her lies. One of whom only managed because the proof appeared right in front of his eyes. And then the people who clung to her shallow façade practically made an entire cult of personality around her. They pushed Marinette away even without her telling them to, just because Marinette did not buy into all her lies.

Marinette, though. She was something special. A rare blend of courage and compassion she had never seen before. Her main flaw was that she lacked complex social awareness. She probably thought that now that Lila was gone, her friends would come back and everything would be fine. What Marinette didn’t know, or chose to ignore, was that her friends clearly weren’t perfect, if they chose to believe a stranger over their longtime friend. Which brought her to her more impromptu experiment.

_Experiment 6.1.1: Marinette_

Marinette was the only person in the class who both caught onto her lies and tried to expose her. Naturally, she was prepared to simply watch the battle between the one person wielding truth and the entire class deluded with her lies. But with how willing the classmates were to turn on Marinette, she saw the opportunity to experiment more on her.

She had already experimented in the past with how her lies affected single individuals (especially in Move #4). She pushed and prodded, finding out where people’s boundaries were and what it took to get them to cross them. She saw just how low she could make people fall and how much they trusted her when she pulled them back up. She even experimented a bit with romance, but for the most part her classmates were too young for it to affect them too much.

Although, now that several of her classmates had started dating this year, romance was apparently an available option for her next experiment.

Back to Marinette though, she had plenty of time to experiment with how a group of people could affect a person in ways that just herself could not. Marinette’s classmates and even her former best friend were more than willing to ostracize and criticize her. She watched as Marinette struggled, as she realized that one of her main supporting pillars in one Alya Césaire had crumbled underneath her.

Although, she was more grounded and confident than she expected after losing a best friend. She probably had more support from her family, or a friend outside of school.

She absently wrote her notes in her journal, before abruptly realizing the time. She needed to get dinner ready for herself.

She put the journal back in the lockbox. Marinette probably would have been shocked to know she did, in fact, make it herself. It was during her locks phase, where she learned to make and break different locks. Lock-picking was, at times, a valuable skill. Nonetheless, she locked the box and put it back in her drawer before getting up and going to the kitchen.

She did not feel like making an elaborate dinner. Boiled pasta would be fine while she continued to think. She got out a pot and added water, then turned on the stove.

Click-click-click-click-boof

She stared at the blue flames for a moment before shaking her head and putting the pot of water on the unit. She walked over to the table and sat down to wait while the water boiled.

Now that her experiment was officially over, she started to wonder what her plan would be moving forward. As of today, she was officially the class pariah now that they had welcomed Marinette back with open arms and frantic apologies. She knew, though that the scars of Marinette having her friends turn on her so quickly and easily would not go away for a long time. 

She felt a twisted flash of pride in opening Marinette up to the harsh reality that the people around her were not perfect people. Maybe she had started Marinette on a path that looked similar to her own. Though, she herself was much further down the path than Marinette would probably ever get.

So, Marinette still had potential to be involved in her next experiment. It was foolish, however, to only make one plan, so she kept brainstorming.

She had thought, earlier, that romance was now a viable topic to experiment on. She had already experimented a bit on Alya and Nino, seeing just how tight they were together and how affecting one member of the couple affected the other. There were also the other couples in the class who would gladly answer any questions she had. But for a primary experiment, one she could focus the majority of her time on, it needed to be deeper. She wanted someone to develop feelings for her, so see how those feelings influenced their perception of her.

Who would develop a crush on her though, now that she had been outed as a liar? Most of her classmates would not be willing to develop feelings for a while, even if she acted well. She would need to act quiet and reserved, yet repentant and unbearably honest if someone got close to her. They would need to think that she had lied for attention because she had so many wounds close to her heart. Yes, now that she was thinking about it, that would probably work well.

As for targets, she would need someone else acting quiet and reserved. The contrast between her previous social butterfly tendencies and her new act of brooding would draw attention, and it would work best if her target did not share their feelings with their classmates. They needed to feel a connection with her new façade. Sabrina was probably an option, though she seemed permanently tied to Chloé. Max also had somewhat ideal characteristics, though he had never shown any sort of romantic feelings before, so he might not be an option. She might even be able to do a complicated Enemies to Lovers with Marinette.

As exciting as her new plan starting to come together was, she forced herself to stop. She had already spent multiple months dealing with the petty feelings of teenagers. While experimenting with romance was certainly an option, there were so many other potential options. Options with greater rewards.

_The Miraculous_

The first time she had akumatized someone, she had felt a detached sense of pride. She had manipulated someone’s feelings to the point where someone else could weaponize them. She was worried, for a moment, that if her akuma won the miraculous, she could get in trouble. But Ladybug beat the akuma and purified it with relative ease.

She had studied the akumas listed on the Ladyblog (in view of Alya, of course), looking for potential patterns. And while students at school tended to get akumatized often, the akumas were weak, with gimmicky powers for the most part. The more dangerous akumas had deep emotional wounds, not the petty mood swings of teenagers.

She felt better, then, when her experimentation led to more akumas. They were easy akumas, the result of superficial negative emotions. Though again, every time, she felt that twisted sense of pride that She had created those akumas.

Her brief stint as Volpina had awakened something in her, though. For a brief moment, she had real power. She had spent weeks afterward considering the ramifications of such power. Ladybug and Chat Noir, despite apparently being thousands of years old on the Ladyblog, had both acted like children in front of her. They probably were the teenagers they sounded like. Which meant that somehow, teenagers had gotten their hands on miraculous with immeasurable power.

She was ripped from her thoughts when the pot on the stove began to sizzle. Grabbing a rag and using it to pull of the lid, she discovered that her pot of water had been boiling for some time now while she was lost in thought. The water level was significantly lower now, but still deep enough to cook the pasta properly.

She poured a healthy serving of farfalle in the water then set the timer on the stove. It wouldn’t do to get lost in thought again and overcook the pasta, so she stayed close to the stove and merely checked her phone. 

She noticed she had been blocked from the girls’ group text. She had expected that. She checked the Ladyblog and yes, it looked like Alya had taken down any of the posts that had used her information. 

_Finally_

Alya had been nice enough to listen to when she said she wanted to remain anonymous, but she still had put posts on how she knew Ladybug’s best friend personally. Thankfully, those had now been taken down. As gratifying as it was to know that Alya’s trust in her had extended to her public blog, she knew that information posted online could stay there indefinitely, and she never liked it when ties from one Move went with her to another.

The timer dinged and she pulled the pasta off the stove. She turned off the unit and scooped the pasta onto a plate with practiced ease. She got out her seasonings from the cupboard, and the block of cheese from the fridge.

She ate in silence, in an empty house.

As she cleaned up, she went through her routine check of what needed to be done to keep the house running. The dishwasher was about half full, not ready for another cycle. She had done her laundry earlier in the week, so she was good on that front. She did, however, need to return the psychology book to the library; it was due at the end of the week. She went over to the sink and began to wash the pot she used for dinner. Mother would probably get dinner on the way home, if she came home at all, so there wasn’t anything to do for her.

As she wiped the pot dry and put it back in the cabinet, her mind was inevitably drawn back to the possibilities of the Miraculous. She had thought about how to get her hands on one, and to her were three possible options.

Option 1: Steal a miraculous directly.

Probably the simplest option. She knew that as a civilian she would only be able to steal one if she caught a hero off guard, but it would be impossible to do so without exposing herself to the heroes and inevitably becoming an enemy in their eyes. 

When she was akumatized into chameleon, she had done so willingly, perhaps the only akuma to do so. She knew that without intense negative emotions, she would not be able to gain the powers necessary to successfully overpower the heroes, and because she had willingly accepted her powers, she was fully conscious throughout her akumatization. (She would not intentionally let Hawk Moth win, that had too many unknown variables for it to be beneficial to her)

This meant that if she got akumatized again, if she managed to grab an akuma from even one hero (not impossible, it had almost been done before), she could simply abscond with the miraculous and destroy the object before Hawk Moth could react and compel her.

Option 2: Force Ladybug to make her a temporary hero.

Ladybug did not like her, that was for sure, but she knew that sometimes Ladybug had to give out extra miraculous to the people around her. She was there for Startrain, when Ladybug gave Max the horse miraculous.

However, given how unlikely it would be for Ladybug to give her a miraculous, at least before she had spent a long time under a different façade, the only way that plan would work was if she was literally the only person available.

Startrain was unique in that there was a limited pool of people to choose from, but even then there were many people on the train she could have chosen.

Option 3: Receive a miraculous from the same person who gave them to Ladybug and Chat Noir

Ladybug had often needed to leave the fight to get a temporary hero, and given that she was a teenager, it makes sense that some external source had given it to her.

Unfortunately, Hawk Moth know that as well, and Ladybug knows Hawk Moth knows, so Ladybug is definitely on guard when she leaves to retrieve it. She probably de-transforms beforehand to provide an extra layer of protection.

If this option works at all, it would definitely be because either Ladybug or whatever entity gave out the miraculous got careless.

She hadn’t had this many possibilities to work towards since, well, her entire life. It was miraculous.

She drifted off to sleep just hours before school the next day, still completely entranced by all the plans swirling around her mind. 

Marinette may have thought she won, but she had merely brought a long overdue experiment to close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha I made you read Lila character development
> 
> Like the Anglerfish, I lured you in with the promise of Lila Salt only to be swiftly outfoxed (lol)
> 
> I'm gonna make a second chapter where Lila actually does stuff. Eventually.


	2. Lila salt salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following her "defeat" at the hands of Marinette, Lila begins to plot.
> 
> With her first experiment complete, she can put her full effort into something else.
> 
> Getting something else.

Option 1: Steal a miraculous directly.

It had been two weeks since she had been “exposed” as a liar.

Two weeks of frenzied preparation.

Her mind was locked, constantly focused during every waking hour. Multiple notebooks had been completely filled out with diagrams, flowcharts, and lists. 

On the first day, she was tirelessly planning. During school the next day, classmates expecting whining or groveling from her were disappointed to find her scribbling furiously on what had only hours earlier been a blank notebook. The teachers could wait, lunch could wait, her classmates could wait, everything paled in comparison to the excitement she got from her plotting.

And it wasn’t just at school. Her usual chores didn’t seem important now, at all. She only got up to grab some calories when it was clear that without them she wouldn’t be able to think as fast. Sleep was a laughable concept, when she had the potential for so much more.

The next day didn’t diminish her enthusiasm at all, but she was starting to feel the effects of her neglecting her body. The occasional unconscious stint from sleep deprivation didn’t stifle her creativity at all. Dreaming dropped her unconscious mental barriers and allowed her creativity to flow unhindered.

It was only in the last couple of days that she had started to take sleeping pills and get back on a meal schedule. She wanted both her body and mind to be ready when she put her plans into action.

The opportunity came without fanfare. The more forgiving of the classmates were apparently ready to talk to her. They came up to her empty table during lunch, hesitantly opening the conversation. Lila harshly shut them down and reminded them just how much her lies had hurt them, had hurt Marinette. They looked hurt. One started to cry.

Lila grinned as she excused herself and walked away.

A dark purple butterfly passed her in the hallway.

She stopped, turning around. _It’s time._

Feeling an odd sense of déjà vu, she scooped the butterfly into her earrings.

“ _…You again?_ ” Hawk Moth’s voice floated across her consciousness.

“Don’t mind me, I just wanted to try something.”

" _…Well then, be my guest._ "

The dark purple aura washed across her body. However, because she willingly took the akuma, she could shape aura to her desires. The powers wouldn’t be nearly as strong as someone with deep emotional scars to take advantage of, but for her they didn’t need to be.

She stood up as the dark aura faded away.

Instead of the tight bodysuits typical of most akumas, she deliberately gave herself a long, dark, concealing robe. The large hood covered her face and hair, and the large mask she wore obscured her entire face. Importantly, the sleeves of the robe completely covered her arms, obscuring her hands (and the contents thereof) from any prying eyes.

Emerging out of the back of her robe were wings of white light, although these were merely decorative. They were paper thin, almost entirely incorporeal, made up of bright intersecting lines.

“ _Going for a more dramatic look, aren't you?_ ”

“You’re one to talk. And you needed something special for your Dark Angel.”

The main perk of practicing lying for so long was that Lila _knew_ how people worked. They needed stability to properly confront a new foe. Even _heroes_ like Ladybug herself still fell victim to relatively simple psychological manipulation.

Lila (or rather, Dark Angel now) had been carefully kiting the main two heroes for a while now. She deliberately moved the fight to an area with many hiding places. Lila, on her central vantage point, had many blocks to her line of sight allowing the heroes to find hiding spots, but the heroes would have to open themselves up to attack if they tried to come at her.

Ladybug’s head popped out from behind a rooftop. Lila immediately made a show of blasting her (The beams were extremely weak, only barely capable of briefly incapacitating even civilians, but the heroes didn’t need to know that). She deliberately ignored the movement of Chat Noir in the corner of her vision, instead letting them both think she was solely focused on Ladybug’s hiding spot.

Just as expected, Chat Noir lunged at her.

Lila made a show of moving only at the last minute and firing a weak beam at him from her wings, forcing him to twist in midair and miss her completely. Immediately he retreated close to Ladybug’s hiding spot to regroup and make another plan.

The beams in question weren’t quite what they seemed. She could fire small blasts of light out of her hands, sure, but that was mostly for show. The bulk of her powers were centered around the creation of small portals.

The portals had flashy outlines that blended perfectly with the designs on her fake wings. For each of her “blasts,” she merely created a portal with one end in front of her hands hidden by her long robe with the other end briefly appearing just in front of her wings. The end effect was that it looked like her wings were growing bright circles that shot beams.

With the concealing clothes, the heroes didn’t know her identity. Lila looked like just another wronged victim of Hawk Moth shooting her anguish at anybody who moved around her. Lila had carefully hidden her powers of teleportation for use at the most opportune moment.

A bright flash of light signaled that Ladybug had called for her lucky charm. This was the key moment of her plan. Sometimes, the lucky charm meant that Ladybug would grab a temporary hero, but in other fights it simply provided a way for Ladybug to defeat the Akuma on her own.

And Lila needed a relatively untrained hero for her plan to work properly.

Eventually, Ladybug zipped away on her yoyo, leaving Chat Noir behind to “distract” her. _Perfect_.

Lila let herself appear to be goaded by the Cat hero’s antics, though she knew exactly what Ladybug had left to do. With only two heroes to try and fight her, she could easily attack them before they could land a hit on her.

Which meant they needed additional heroes to serve as bait.

Most likely, Ladybug had left for the fox miraculous. She would get someone to create an illusion of Ladybug and Chat Noir popping out of hiding, only for the real heroes to attack her from behind before she realized what had happened. And for an ordinary Akuma, the plan probably would have worked.

Lila however, was smarter than an ordinary Akuma.

Ladybug eventually returned, without any new hero in tow. However, the way she swiftly threw herself back into the fight gave Lila suspicion. She pretended to become occupied again fighting two heroes at once, but made sure to keep her awareness on the environment around her.

Sure enough, she spotted a flash of orange observing the fight.

She ignored the hero for now, instead merely catching glimpses of them out of the corner of her vision, appearing to focus solely on the main two heroes.

Eventually Ladybug and Chat Noir both retreated behind a rooftop, and Lila caught a flash of orange light. She looked over subtly, noting exactly where the Fox was. _That must be the mirage._

Lila burst into motion. She made a new portal directly under the Fox hero’s feet. They fell through, too startled to even scream. Lila closed the portal, then gave a mock salute towards where she thought Ladybug and Chat Noir were hiding and created another portal underneath herself.

Lila had sent both herself and the Fox hero to an isolated alley a couple blocks from where they were fighting. As she dropped out of the air, she immediately jumped on the dazed Fox hero (Rena Rouge again, apparently), ripping the Fox necklace off of her and making yet another portal to escape even before the transformation had dropped. Immediately, Hawk Moth’s mask appeared in front of her face.

“ _Excellent! Now bring the miraculous to me! One more miraculous on our side will make fighting against Ladybug and Chat Noir that much easier!_ ”

“I’m sorry Hawk Moth. There’s one more thing I need to do.”

“ _What is it? We should quit while we are ahead. You have gone above and beyond all my other Akumas with retrieving even one miraculous!_ ”

“Oh, I’ll quit while I’m ahead alright.”

“ _What-_ “

In one smooth motion Lila ripped her Akumatized earring off her ear and crushed it underneath her heel.

Her transformation dropped as the Akuma lazily fluttered out of the earring. It batted against her face a few times, before eventually flying up into the sky.

Lila absconded to the subway system with the pendant in her pocket as Ladybug swung overhead, searching desperately for the Dark Angel.

* * *

Option 2: Get Ladybug to make her a “temporary” hero.

It had been three months since she had lost her authority over her classmates.

Three months of quiet observation.

Her previous façade had certainly allowed her to do a lot. But when the classmates heard about her “connections” and “talents,” they tended to act different. They unconsciously saw her as above them, someone to look up to, someone they should feel honored to be friends with.

It was fascinating, then, to see how they treated the lowest of the low.

In one afternoon she had went from the class favorite to the class pariah, taking the mantle from the now “redeemed” Marinette. She had half expected to be tormented for it, but it seemed that without Lila’s influence the classmates were much less willing to dish out _punishments_. Marinette probably preached about how they should ignore her, “killing with kindness” as they say.

A shame really.

She had done many different kinds of social experiments in the past. Sometimes, inevitably, she ended up facing people’s ire. Lying always had consequences when she got caught, of course, and when learning anything, failure is the key to success. And she was certainly not unfamiliar with having to step on peoples toes to get what she wanted.

All of that meant she was no stranger to drawing people’s ire.

But she had timed her more risky maneuvers close to when she would have to move again, so she rarely got to feel firsthand the effects that harassment could cause for long.

And this class had looked so promising! Without their resident moral compass, they were more than willing to shove, steal, or sabotage to “punish” the object of their ire. She would have loved to see what they could come up with.

But Marinette just had to throw herself right back into making things _boring_.

Even if she didn’t get to experience the best of what the class could throw at her, she still had plenty to observe. When she was still worshipped as the most popular, the class seemed to meld together into a faceless wall of devotion. Sure, she could pick out which classmates preferred to make things for her, and which ones were more willing to owe her favors, but it all blended together. As the class pariah, though, the differences were much starker.

Some classmates were just angry. They clearly wanted to hurt her for “betraying” them, only held in check by Marinette and her moral compass. They would often cycle between huffily ignoring her or outright sending her death glares. As the months passed they did not change their behavior much. Their worldview wouldn’t change unless somebody changed it for them.

Other classmates were more disappointed. They felt legitimately betrayed that Lila could have _possibly_ been lying to them. She was a reminder, to them, of how much they had hurt. They tried to ignore her, as if that could wipe away how much they themselves had hurt Marinette.

Others simply did not care. They acted as if nothing had changed, silently welcoming Marinette back into the circle and closing Lila out. They acted stoic, but she knew that something had cracked inside them. A social upheaval as large as the one her fall from grace had created would make ripples felt no matter where in the system they were. Lila just had to look harder to find exactly where the cracks her influenced had caused.

Marinette, though, didn’t seem to fit any one category. At first, she had simply acted nice to hide her inner turmoil. But as the months dragged on, her curiosity started to show. She evidently assumed Lila would put up more of a fight. 

Just two weeks ago, Marinette had sat at Lila’s table at lunch, empty except for her. Their classmates had looked over in disbelief, but Marinette had yelled something back about “burying the hatchet.” A few of them scoffed, clearly not ready for anybody to forgive Lila just yet, but Marinette ignored them. (Or, more likely, didn’t pick up on the subtext. Naïve little thing)

They sat in silence for a while, Marinette clearly trying to work up the nerve to open the conversation. Eventually Lila took pity on her and opened the conversation with a brutally honest inquiry as to her intentions. Marinette, though stunned for a brief moment, answered in kind, and then they were talking.

Lila, not feeling the need to keep up her bright and bubbly façade, kept her answers short and curt. The strikingly clear pieces of information she gave up clearly confused Marinette, not used to honesty instead of a sea of vague lies and promises.

“How come your parents didn’t catch you lying?”

“I only have just the one. And she wasn’t around long enough to notice anything amiss.”

“…How do I know you’re not lying right now?” 

“No point now, is there?”

And indeed, there was no reason to lie. The truth, adequately handled, could suffice as well as a finely-crafted falsehood.

Evidently, her answers intrigued Marinette, because she came back the next day. And the next. Alya eventually intervened, pulling Marinette away in the guise of “protecting” her from the evil lies that Lila would dish out. Marinette tried to apologize to her as she was pulled away, but Lila chose to ignore her, instead focusing on her lunch.

It looked like she had snagged Marinette’s attention. She would see how things went from there.

“Lila Rossi. Here is the Miraculous of the Fox, which grants the power of illusion. You will use it for the greater good. Once the job is done you will return the Miraculous to me. Can I trust you?”

“I don’t know, _can_ you trust me? I thought you hated me.”

Ladybug had landed in front of her during the Akuma attack. The entire classroom had been evacuated, but several students had been struck. Luckily, Lila and a few others had escaped. Marinette had suggested that they all hide in separate rooms, and Lila figured complying with her commands would help her feel safer, so she saw no reason to refuse. Coincidentally, it allowed Ladybug to enter undetected by the other classmates at school.

“I didn’t _hate_ you,” Ladybug protested weakly, “you just were acting in a way that hurt others. I have heard on good authority that you have changed.”

“Marinette?” Lila asked.

Ladybug flushed, suddenly nervous. “W-what?”

“I figured. She’s the only one who talks to me. I don’t really understand why, considering what I did to her, but I’m not complaining. It’s…nice. To have someone to talk to.”

“R-right. You shouldn’t know that we talk. It’s-“

“Dangerous, right. Another weakness for Hawk Moth to utilize.”

“And that wisdom is why I’m choosing you for the miraculous. That and Rena Rouge got struck as a civilian and we kinda need the Fox.”

Lila laughed. “I figured. In that case,” she took the box from Ladybug’s hands and opened it. “I’d be happy to help.”

She transformed, and she fought the Akuma. Her illusions created a distraction allowing Ladybug to incapacitate the Akuma with her yoyo string, which gave an opportunity for Chat Noir to use his cataclysm. Ladybug caught and purified the butterfly, and then they all landed on a nearby rooftop.

Chat Noir spoke up first. “I used my Cataclysm, so I’m going to have to head out. Pound it?”

“Pound it!” said Ladybug, casually bumping his fist. She looked over at Lila, wordlessly asking if she wanted in on the fist bump, but Lila looked away.

Eventually, Chat Noir awkwardly retracted his fist, gave a weird look to Lila, then vaulted away.

Ladybug spoke up, breaking the silence. “Uh… why didn’t you bump the fist? It’s a thing.”

“I wasn’t sure you wanted me to. We both know I’m not a real hero.”

“Don’t say that! I know you aren’t my first pick for the Fox, but you did great today! And while we both know how much I hate lying, even I have to admit that the Fox requires skill with deception.”

Lila snorted. “yeah, I suppose.”

“Though now that the Akuma is taken care of, I’m going to need that back.” She held out her hand for the Miraculous.

Lila detransformed, pulling the pendant from her neck. She stopped, holding it above Ladybug’s outstretched palm.

“I can’t overstate how grateful I am. You trusted me. Enough to entrust me with a Miraculous. The thing is though…”

She dropped the pendant.

“You shouldn’t have”

The pendant made contact with Ladybug’s hand.

And disappeared in a puff of orange smoke, leaving Ladybug alone on the rooftop feeling very, very small.

* * *

Option 3: Receive a miraculous from whatever person who gave them to Ladybug

It had been six months since she had been cast out from her classmates.

Nothing had happened.

She had been expecting at least something. An opportunity of some sort. But it never showed up. She just sat there, alone, every day at school.

She had been frantic, at first. Scrambling around for a solid plan to latch onto. And she did come up with many viable plans. But they were all complicated, with messy triggers that weren’t likely to line up nice and clean.

She eventually settled down. Accepting that she didn’t need a solid project to move forward. She sat in silence, observing the ripples that her fall from grace had caused. And it was fine. She enjoyed it. The classmates provided a lot of useful information.

But she missed it. That feeling of being in control. With concrete steps to follow to get what she wanted. She felt restless, now. With nothing solid to build on.

She had been sitting in a coffeehouse. She had come in after school, not quite ready to return to the empty house waiting for her. But an Akuma had attacked on the other side of the city. It could have been either fortunate or unfortunate, depending on where her plans needed her, but right then she just felt inconvenienced.

Without something solid to think about, a grand plan to work towards, it was hard to focus on anything at all. She felt staticky, uncomfortable in her skin. Without a scheme to center herself around, she was stuck endlessly fighting off that uncomfortable feeling that threatened to consume her.

Distracted, she took out her phone to watch a livestream of the Akuma attack. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do right then, and any knowledge she got could help her focus again.

A flash of red light signaled that Ladybug had called for her Lucky Charm. Ladybug and Chat Noir retreated for a moment, having an inaudible conversation, before Ladybug sprung away, leaving Chat Noir to fight by himself.

This was a common pattern when an Akuma got too difficult for the two heroes to fight by themselves. Ladybug would swing away to retrieve a miraculous and bestow it upon a temporary hero. It was simple. It was routine.

She was torn from her thoughts when the bell on the door rang and a figure walked in.

Normally she would have ignored it but the person walking in was so poorly dressed that she looked over in disbelief. Not that the clothes were ugly or revealing in any way. Quite the opposite.

The person was dressed in dark clothing, which, while effective camouflage in the city and the alleys, stood out harshly in the bright and colorful coffee shop. They wore a scarf and sunglasses, and had their hair tucked into their hat.

They were trying to be sneaky but failing miserably.

Their disguise worked fine enough, though, because Lila wouldn’t be able to identify them due to the extra layers of clothing. The outfit just served to draw attention from the very people they were trying to hide from.

The figure walked briskly over to a booth in the corner, where an old man was sitting by himself. The old man opened his bag, speaking to the figure in a low voice that Lila couldn’t make out at this distance. The overdressed figure took something from the man, then stood up and speed walked out.

_That was…interesting to say the least. Who was that person? And why were they so bad at stealth? What did the old man give them?_

As much as she wanted to investigate further, she figured it was not worth looking into. Despite the six months of missed opportunities, she was still interested in getting a Miraculous. She focused her attention back to the livestream of the current akuma attack. Moments later, Ladybug returned with the Turtle hero and-

_Wait._

The timing struck her as odd. Ladybug leaving to grab a temporary miraculous. An odd, disguised figure retrieving something from an old man sitting alone. The Turtle hero arriving only minutes later.

_It can’t be that easy._

She stood up and walked out of the Coffee Shop. She rearranged her hair and turned her jacket inside out before walking back in and confidently striding over to where the old man sat by himself.

She deliberately ignored the old man’s confused gaze, pulling out a small book from her pocket and flipping to a random page.

”Our mutual friend seems to be in a _spot_ of trouble.” Lila figured confidence would override any doubts the old man might have had. Sure enough, he seemed to accept it.

“Why would she send you? Spots is the only one who should know my location.”

“Because of Moth Man.” She lowered her voice further, turning to stare at the old man. “When Ladybug brought the Turtle out, Hawk Moth sent Mayura to trail Ladybug in case she had to return.” This, of course, was a complete lie. But the old man seemed to be buying it. “And Ladybug does need more help.”

Abruptly, Lila remembered the book that had inspired Volpina. She had practically memorized that page, completely entranced by the possibilities that the Miraculous could create. One name on the page stood out, now that she was thinking about it. Trixx.

She leaned over, mouth inches from the old man’s ear.

“Ladybug mentioned something about a certain tricky fox.”

The old man sat up, clearly convinced, and reached into his bag. Lila heard something click open, and the man brought out a pendant.

 _The_ pendant.

“Normally Ladybug would do this, but I suppose now that she is indisposed I can do it as well. Here is the Miraculous of the Fox, which grants the power of illusion. You will use it for the greater good. Once the job is done you will return the Miraculous to Ladybug.”

_It’s that easy._

* * *

A figure clad in white and blue giggles uncontrollably. For all that they did to stop her, Lila always seemed to find a way to surprise them. Timeline after timeline, Lila managed to conquer whatever obstacles were in her way. Minibug always managed to look so adorably confused when she found out how she had been bamboozled.

Finally, they manage to get ahold of themself. "At this rate I might just let her keep it," Bunnyx chokes out, before bursting into laughter once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just open up the possibility for a sequel where Lila does stuff with the Fox Miraculous? Yes.
> 
> Am I going to do it? Probably not lol.


End file.
